Having trouble finding a Zero Clearance wood insert

[jlightning]

I was receintly asking about some options for a top rated wood insert and one of the members of this site let me know that I have a zero clearance fireplace which seems to leave me w/ few choices. From the small size of my fireplace dimensions it looks like I will only be able to fit a wood insert w/ a small firebox. Here are my fireplace basic dimensions: fireplace opening - 42†wide, at rear of fireplace - 26†wide, fireplace opening - 23†high, fireplace depth - 17.5â€. I have a new construction house that is about 4 years old and is about 2300 square foot of interior space. Has anyone here put in a small zero clearance wood insert and had some success - saved some $ on heating in the winter? I have plenty of free wood and have all the tools I need to cut, split, haul, and store the wood but am hitting a serious road block w/ this Zero Clearance, pre-fab, and small fireplace of mine What options are out there? So far I have found the Jotul Winterport and one of the Pacific Energy small inserts seems to fit the bill. Is it worth it to spend upwards of $4000 - $5000 on a small insert to help heat my 2300sq ft. house?

 

[Arc_Dad]

It sounds to me like you could put a new high efficiency (HE) zero clearance fireplace in there and be good to go. I just installed a Kozy Heat Z42 Zero Clearance (ZC) fireplace and I think its about that size. Welcome to Hearth and do some research on here.

 

[jlightning]

If you don't mind me asking Arc Dad, how much did it cost you for the unit, install, and other supplies? How well is the Kozy heat heating your house?

 

[par0thead151]

i have a ZC insert.
look into the enviro venice 1700 line.
puts out a LOT of heat and is one of the larger ZC inserts out there.

 

[indiana4spartans]

I'll put in my 2 cents. We installed a Napoleon 1101 in our ZC fireplace which could have taken a much larger insert. Paid around $2200 total (including install and new liner). Happy with it so far. I didn't intend on it heating our whole house, we have geothermal. Wanted something that could heat our great room, kitchen, half second story. Does a great job. Might look into something bigger down the road because I have the room for it, but it's all about the $$.

 

[pastera]

I have a Hampton HI200 - very small at 1.4CF but it keeps the oil off as long as you feed it every few hours.

House is a 2.5 story colonial with attached garage (2800sf main house)
Stove is located centrally on the first floor

Stove room goes to 75+°
Dining room (furthest from stove on 1st floor) stays around 66-67°
Master (2nd floor directly above stove room) 68-70°
Bedroom above the dining room 66-67°
3rd floor 70-72° (Yeah all the heat goes up but mom lives up there and is a Florida transplant)

The insert takes the edge off oil usage for the house - 100 gallons in 5 weeks versus 240 gallons a month (~1 gallon a day for hot water) to keep the house much warmer (thermostat set at 63°)

I am hoping to reduce oil use by 400+ gallons a year (<3 year payback)

Aaron

 

[notenuff]

I was receintly asking about some options for a top rated wood insert and one of the members of this site let me know that I have a zero clearance fireplace which seems to leave me w/ few choices. From the small size of my fireplace dimensions it looks like I will only be able to fit a wood insert w/ a small firebox. Here are my fireplace basic dimensions: fireplace opening - 42†wide, at rear of fireplace - 26†wide, fireplace opening - 23†high, fireplace depth - 17.5â€. I have a new construction house that is about 4 years old and is about 2300 square foot of interior space. Has anyone here put in a small zero clearance wood insert and had some success - saved some $ on heating in the winter? I have plenty of free wood and have all the tools I need to cut, split, haul, and store the wood but am hitting a serious road block w/ this Zero Clearance, pre-fab, and small fireplace of mine What options are out there? So far I have found the Jotul Winterport and one of the Pacific Energy small inserts seems to fit the bill. Is it worth it to spend upwards of $4000 - $5000 on a small insert to help heat my 2300sq ft. house?

New to here too but I got a Z42 just back in Sept after grappling with the same situation you have as far as home size and fireplace envelope. Went for the big fireplace rather than the little insert, as the little guy would probably do the job but with a lot more reloading. This winter with the big box on the z42 i can fill it mostly full once and run the stove room up to ~72 (about as hot as i ever want it) have the furthest room on the same floor 68 with one little box fan and the second floor hall 66. then small fires through to maintain the temp and enough hot coals to reload at night. But as long as the sun is shining it don't take much. I could easily get a lot hotter but 68 ish is how we like it .I am in NW NJ and the jotul W'port was only gonna run me about 3+k for the insert and the install, so i would shop around a bit more. We are just about at $6k all in for the Z42 (unit, blower, stainless, install labor, tile work on the hearth and around the face of the unit). Actually that may include relining my oil boiler flue as well...
I also priced the comparable RSF unit and it was about 2k more. Now if i can just convince my wife that dropping one log on a cooling bed of coals does not constitute building a fire....

 

[Mt Ski Bum]

I've been looking at options to upgrade the ZC fireplace in a place that I'll be moving into in a couple months- here's my thread, hopefully some of the responses can help give you ideas also.

https://www.hearth.com/econtent/index.php/forums/viewthread/71624/

 

[jlightning]

Thanks for the info everyone! I saw that alot of you are in the same situation as me...a large house w/ a small insert to take the edge off. I even saw that indiana4spartans has a geothermal just like we do! Great heating system but i am always worried about loosing power in the winter and not having a second heating source. For everyone that has the small insert in their big house, do you find a signifigant amount of savings? Kinda sounds like it is still worth a good look at some of my local wood stove stores. When is the best time for local wood stove sales?

 

[pastera]

Now if i can just convince my wife that dropping one log on a cooling bed of coals does not constitute building a fire....

Good luck - :cheese:

When starting the stove or reloading, the damper rod stays where I left it in the morning because "that's where YOU left it"

As I'm driving up the road in the afternoon, she sends me smoke signals to let me know she's home :-S

Aaron

 

[kingquad]

As was said earlier, look at Enviro. I don't think the 1700 will work with your depth, but the 1200 will and has a little bit bigger firebox than the jotul or PE. I'm very happy with my 1700. Also check the Lopi 1750i. I think it's ZC install approved and it has a 2.2cuft. firebox. It does protrude onto the hearth quite a bit though.

 

[Mt Ski Bum]

Now if i can just convince my wife that dropping one log on a cooling bed of coals does not constitute building a fire....

As I'm driving up the road in the afternoon, she sends me smoke signals to let me know she's home :-S

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[indiana4spartans]

Thanks for the info everyone! I saw that alot of you are in the same situation as me...a large house w/ a small insert to take the edge off. I even saw that indiana4spartans has a geothermal just like we do! Great heating system but i am always worried about loosing power in the winter and not having a second heating source. For everyone that has the small insert in their big house, do you find a signifigant amount of savings? Kinda sounds like it is still worth a good look at some of my local wood stove stores. When is the best time for local wood stove sales?

I think we've seen savings of 50%+ even with the geo. Pretty happy with what we have.

 

[fredarm]

I have a small fireplace and therefore a small insert (PE Vista) for a 2,000 sf colonial. It does a great job heating the L-shaped living/dining/kitchen area (roughly 800 square feet). It certainly can't heat the whole house, although some heat does find its way upstairs. It has reduced my heating oil consumption by about a third. It could proabably do more, but I'm mainly an evening and weekend burner (although if oil prices keep going up that may change next year).

 

[jlightning]

So I went shopping today at my local wood stove stores and realized I am limited to 2-3 options locally. Two of the stores carried the Jotul Winterport and one of the stores had a Hampton HI200. All of the prices seemed to come out close on all of them - around $3700 installed w/ $300 tax refund. I would have to say that the hampton tickled my fancy more so then the jotul did and the hamptons have a limited lifetime warranty on some of the parts and jotul only has a 5 year warrenty. I got to hear the fan running on a hampton and it was almost silent but i never did get to hear the fan on a Jotul stove to compare but the hampton fan was QUIET! My third option is a VC Mont. but I am still not sure if it is ok for a Zero Clearance fireplace and I have not really priced them out. What are your opinions of the hampton HI200 vs Jotul Winterport considering they are almost the same price where I live.